Republic Of Pirates is a more relaxed Anno-style city builder, out today with a demo

rockpapershotgun.com:

“The Republic Of Pirates was meant to be different…” laments the narration in the opening of the seafaring resource-chain-em-up strategy, out today with a demo on Steam at time of writing. This made me laugh, in the same way someone saying “the failure of Bastard City was deeply sobering” might. Yes, I know the pirate republic was a real thing, ended not by the infighting and treachery shown here, but by the British. I will avoid easy gags about Plundering Loisences and instead lightly recommend the demo to you. It’s got enough meat on its bones for a less brainwidth-hogging gulp of city building, assuming you like the pirate theme enough. Spy the trailer I’ve shoved in a dangling cage below, as a warning to others who might trespass around this RPS-pelago.

Before we move on to the resource-chaining of it all, I’d like to draw your attention to the naval combat itself, since that’s the feature that makes the best use of the piratey theme. Combat itself is a familiar RTS blow-trader, though with low numbers of units. However, in possibly the most elaborate and pleasing unit bark I’ve ever heard, your ships sing full shanty verses when you select them. They’re not just one bloke in a cupboard with a USB mic and a bottle of Captain Morgan’s either. We’re talking layered harmonies and full-arsed pipemanship. What’s a slight bummer is that this is the most considered and interesting thing about the ships, at least the ones in the opening hours. There’s no real considerations around navigation or facing, although each class of ship does have a hotkey ability. The starting sloop, for example, gets a cone-AEO shot.

After you’ve taken down a ship, you can gather resources from the wreckage, and this is where the bulk of the clicking begins. You make land, you plonk down a port, and this becomes your hub, since you’ll need to connect every other building to the same road network. The basic economy is a circular system. You need workers for resources to build ships, workers